Page 67 of Steadfast
Shit.
She left, and I paced the garage for a couple of minutes, feeling twitchy. I went over to a chin-up bar I’d installed when I was fourteen and banged out a quick set of ten. A little muscle fatigue was just what I needed to soothe the tension knotting my insides.
I bent over for a hamstring stretch and counted slowly to ten. In my mind, I pictured the warming hut at the top of Mount Mansfield, where I used to like to snowboard. Back in tenth grade, the top of that ski hill was my favorite place. Nothing bad ever happened up there, and you could see all the way to New York on one side and New Hampshire on the other.
Deep breaths, I ordered myself.This too shall pass.
At rehab, they’d taught us some meditation techniques. I was pretty shitty at meditating, but one thing the psychologist said had stuck with me. “The goal of meditation is not to make you all into superhumans. The goal is to remind your brain that focus is achoice. That a place of calm is always waiting for you if you seek it.”
I hoped she was right.
After putting in a half-hour more work, I began cleaning up. I shut off the work lamp over my table and swept sanding dust off the Prius’s panel.
The cravings were still going strong. Maybe that’s why I sensed the intruders before I saw them.
The bulk of someone’s form cast a shadow in the window light. Then it disappeared again.
Cops, my subconscious offered up. Unease coiled low in my belly. I hoped Sophie hadn’t been spotted here by her father.
Whoever was outside my door was trying to be stealthy. I tensed, wondering what was coming. Slowly, I set the sanding block down. I wanted something heavier in my hand. Unfortunately I only had time to take one step before the door burst open.
Leaping toward the tools hanging on the far wall, I almost made it.
Almost.
I was reaching for the lug wrench when someone kicked my feet out from under me. I barely got my arms up to cushion my head by the time I hit the concrete floor. Instinctively I curled into a ball, and so the first kick landed at my back. The boot hit so hard that I saw stars. When I tried to inhale, I couldn’t do it.
“You think that’s bad? Tell us where the shit is or I will finish you.”
Not cops.
Fuck.
The pain from the drug dealer’s kick was so fierce that it took a moment before I could even force the words out. “Don’t know. Never did.”
The next blow landed at my kidney, and then the next one made me shout in pain.
“WHERE!” shouted the goon. “Check his pockets,” he said to someone. “And the cash register. The shit has to be here somewhere.”
It’s just pain, I told myself. I gave myself a count of three to recover, then I rolled away from my attackers. I made it about three feet before someone came at me from the opposite side. Fuck, there were three of them. But I could see a tire iron just out of my reach…
That’s when I took a boot to the head. And everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sophie
Internal DJ is set to: “Blue Christmas,” Jewel Version
Community Dinner Nightwas the usual chaos. Everyone was in a Christmassy mood except for me. Even Mrs. Walters was singing Jingle Bells in time with the clanking of the dishwashing machine.
Jude wasn’t at the prep station.
I put two-dozen chicken legs into a baking dish and sprinkled my signature spice mixture over them. And I tried not to fret. He was just pissed at me, probably. Or maybe there was some rush job at the shop that needed his attention.
There was no way to text him to confirm any of these theories. I hated how tricky it was to reach him, so I’d bought Jude a pre-paid phone for Christmas. I’d planned to give it to him tonight, after a round or two of sweaty make-up sex.
But where was he now?
